A friend of mine wants a horse that looks like Trigger (deep palomino, wide blaze, four stockings). She has a palomino mare, mind you she is not quite "deep" palomino, but she's definitely palomino. A friend of mine has a deep gold palomino stud with 2 white stockings on his hind legs and a wide blaze. A recent foal of his (out of a palomino mare with no stockings and a thin blaze) has markings just like his. 2 white stockings on the hind legs, a wide blaze... Here's my question. Is the placement of the stockings/socks on the stud/dam hereditary? For example; a stud with one white stocking on his front left leg producing a foal with the same marking in the same place? What would be the chances of a stud with 2 stockings producing a foal with 4 when the mare has none?

No, white markings are not hereditary. One example is the clone of some famous jumper or something, that had white leg markings, and in the cloned foal, the leg markings were not the same. Obviously you have a better chance of getting white if you breed to a horse that has extensive white, high white stockings, big blaze ect., but even then, you can often get a foal with no white. Sometimes you will find a stallion or mare, and they will have an offspring that is almost an identical copy, but it is still a random occurance. I would highly recommend that you read "Horse Color Explained" by Jeanette Grower. Great book, good explanations on hereditary color.

I honestly have to say that one of the things I like about the horse color book is that she does stress about breeding for quality first, color secondary. But it does give you a lot of cool information about colors and coat patterns.

White markings aren't hereditary? These are pictures of some of my gelding Scotch's ancestors:

Scotch:

Their markings are all so similar, I just assumed that markings could be passed down from parent to offspring. When I worked at the TB breeding farm, many of the foals had similar markings to the sire and dam. How could this be if it is not hereditary?

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